Guerilla Games co-founder and Epic veteran building ‘a European alternative’ to Unreal Engine

Arjan Brussee says he is building 'The Immense Engine,' a European-hosted game engine positioned as an alternative to Unreal and Unity. He highlighted full AI integration and potential use cases beyond gaming, including 3D simulations for defense and logistics. The story is strategic and forward-looking, but it contains no financing, launch timing, or revenue data, so near-term market impact appears limited.

Analysis

This is less a near-term software launch story than a signal that sovereign-capability demand is moving up the stack from chips and cloud into developer tooling. If a credible EU-hosted engine emerges, the first beneficiaries are likely to be public-cloud and systems vendors that can package a compliant “European stack” for defense, industrial simulation, and regulated enterprise use cases. The second-order effect is margin pressure on incumbent engine ecosystems: even a small but sticky slice of public-sector and dual-use workloads can create procurement pull away from U.S.-controlled platforms over 3-5 years.

The more important nuance is that AI integration changes the economics of engine development and maintenance. If a smaller team can iterate faster using agents, the barrier shifts from headcount to distribution, standards, and ecosystem lock-in; that favors whoever owns adjacent workflows like modeling, simulation, and CAD/PLM integration. In practice, the winner may not be the engine itself, but the infrastructure vendor that becomes the default hosting and compliance layer for the engine and its customers.

The near-term catalyst set is sparse, so this is not a days/weeks trade; it is a months-to-years optionality theme. The main failure mode is execution risk: engines are winner-take-most markets, and a new entrant without content pipelines, middleware support, and developer mindshare can burn capital for years without adoption. A second risk is political labeling over substance—if the project is more branding than procurement-grade compliance, the market will discount it quickly.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long PANW / CRWD basket vs short a broad software index over 6-12 months: if EU regulated buyers push for sovereign tooling, security and compliance spend rises faster than generic application software; keep size modest because this is an indirect beneficiary trade.
• Pair long a Europe infrastructure/software beneficiary ETF or basket (e.g., SAP, ASML if using local industrial simulation demand as a proxy) versus short U.S. gaming platform/software exposure over 12-24 months; thesis is EU digital sovereignty budgets slowly re-route procurement, not that a new engine wins outright.
• Buy longer-dated call spreads in defense-oriented IT integrators or simulation vendors with European exposure over 12-18 months; payoff improves if the engine concept becomes a procurement-spec reference architecture for defense training and logistics.
• Avoid chasing the story via pure-play game software longs; instead wait for evidence of contract wins or hosting partnerships. If no enterprise/defense design wins appear within 2-3 quarters, fade the narrative premium.
• Optionality trade: small long on European cloud/compliance enablers into any announced public-sector pilot, with a hard stop on rumor-driven strength; the trade works only if the project converts from vision to procurement language.